


Historical Interludes

by owlaholic68



Category: Monster of the Week (Tabletop RPG), Original Work
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Bombing, Demon Bureaucracy, Demons, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, M/M, Magical Realism, Panic Attacks, Swearing, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27843850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: Brief scenes in James and Jacques' nearly 150-year relationship that weren't long enough to be on their own.
Relationships: James/Jacques
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	Historical Interludes

Jacques is stomping around the remote wilderness of the Soviet Union when he feels something is wrong.

A lot was wrong with the situation, certainly. He’d been out here for more than ten months now. The War had begun shortly before he’d been called to leave for this demonic job. His boss wanted him to open a series of Gates to Hell and a bunch of other shit. He’d been adding more and more tasks to Jacques’ plate here, keeping him away from where he wanted to be and keeping him miserable.

He’d missed James’ birthday. He’d missed their anniversary. He’d missed Christmas. Jacques had tried to send letters but had no way to know if they were going through. Only three letters from James had made it through to him. He’d missed comforting James when he’d heard news of the London bombings, and _fuck,_ he’d just _missed_ James.

Jacques is standing in the middle of a blizzarding forest when he feels an awful feeling. A tug on his heart as if someone had just poked him hard in the chest, then a dizzying tingle in his fingertips and toes. It stops him short. Something in his stomach hurts.

He racks his brain trying to think of what’s wrong but comes up short. He quickly goes through his demonic attachments, string-like and representing various individuals to whom he’s attached himself.

It’s not his boss, nor is it Harriett, nor Lucy, nor any of the Legions of demons he has under his command, nor is it-

His fingers reach for the pale green thread representing James when that entire connection snaps.

James’ connection was different from the others: it came from a pendant necklace that James wore in the shape of a compass. It was an emergency measure put in place by Jacques about twenty years ago. In short, if something awful and unthinkable was to happen to James, the compass would both alert Jacques and also safeguard James’ soul until Jacques was able to put it back to rights.

Jacques’ heart seizes up as an unfamiliar wave of panic hits him. James’ connection was never supposed to break unless something had happened to his necklace, but what could have happened to break it that – that also wouldn’t have broken James-

Before he has time to consider the consequences, Jacques gathers more demonic energy than he’s ever used at once, channels it into a spell he’s not supposed to know how to use, and-

-And teleports to James’ location, thousands of kilometers away.

He teleports into the root cellar and has only a second to take in the sight of James curled up on the floor with the shattered remnants of his necklace next to him before an awful, terrible sound comes from above him.

A whine and a whistle. A moment later, something down the street explodes. Sirens are wailing.

Another whistle. A sharp whine. Unlike the earlier noise, this one is right above them.

Jacques goes to his knees, not out of fear or some misguided attempt at protecting himself, but because he knows that what he’s about to do will drain his already dangerously low magical reserves and he fears he will collapse. He takes James into his arms, curling over the most precious person that has ever existed.

He extends a hand straight up and concentrates. A sheet of magical protection snaps up over the roof of the house. The bomb falling on them hits it and _bounces-_

“Fuck!” Jacques holds a trembling and sobbing James even tighter. Why did the stupid fucking bomb have to _bounce,_ why couldn’t it just have _exploded-_

But no time to berate himself. Jacques grabs power from _nowhere_ because he has _nothing_ left but his own internal life-force but that will have to do right now. He even draws upon the meager protections already on the house – he can fix them later.

The bomb explodes in the street. Jacques throws up a hasty shield on the front of the house but knows he didn’t do enough.

Glass shatters. A _boom_ nearly deafens him. Things collapse but – but not the house, thank fuck it’s not their house. James wails. Above them, the bombs move down the street and quiet falls on their block.

Jacques holds his love tightly, whispers that everything is okay now and that he’s here and that he’s so glad that James is alive-

His voice breaks on that because he was nearly too late. Because of his stupid boss and his stupid job, Jacques had to abandon him and the worst nearly happened. He hadn’t thought about this, he never thought that their small city would be hit by the war.

“It’s okay, James,” he whispers, pulling back slightly to look at his lover in the dim candlelight of the cellar. “Are you injured?”

James shakes his head, tears running down his dusty gaunt cheeks. Fuck, but it’s been ten months since he’d been able to directly feed from Jacques. He looks like shit. Skinnier than before with dark circles under his eyes. His hair is limp and dull. He’s wearing an old shirt, a sweater over it, and a large fur coat that Jacques had bought him decades ago.

“I – I’m not h-hurt,” he sobs. “J-Jacques, Jacques-”

“Shh, I’m here now,” Jacques soothes. He kisses James’ forehead, cheek, and lips, gently cradling his face like his soft delicate lover will shatter at the slightest touch. “I’m here now, darling. I’ll fix everything, I promise, I promise I’ll make everything better…” He grimaces through a wave of dizziness as he struggles to sit up. “You need to feed from me. You don’t look good.”

“You – you’re too weak,” James protests. Even starving, he’ll always think of Jacques first.

“I’m fine.” Jacques slides off his coat and unbuttons his shirt. He bares his neck.

That kind of temptation can override even the most stubborn hungry vampire’s self-control. James gently sinks his fangs into the side of Jacques’ neck. Jacques cradles James’ head and holds his hand, interlocking their fingers so maybe he’ll never have to let go, maybe he’ll never have to leave James and go back to the miserable stupid Soviet Union again.

James restrains himself from drinking too much, but when he pulls back, some color has returned to his cheeks and he’s not quite so shaky.

“We – we need to go upstairs and see – and see what broke,” James quietly suggests. “I think some of our windows shattered. We’ll – we’ll have to put up wood or something until they can get fixed.”

Before going upstairs, Jacques hugs him again and presses their foreheads together. Their hands still together. “I love you,” he whispers.

James squeezes his hand. He lowers his eyes and sniffles. “I love you too. I – I _missed_ you so much, Jacques.”

“Me too. Me too, James, I missed you so _fucking_ badly.” Jacques gives him one more kiss. They go upstairs to survey the damage.

The house fared better than expected.

The worst damage is to their front door, which missed Jacques’ magical shield and has been blown off its hinges. The living room windows are in tiny pieces strewn over the carpet. Furniture has been knocked over and dented, vases broken and paintings off the walls. The freezing winter winds invade their home through the empty windowsills.

Jacques shakily steps through those holes to look at the outside of the house and yard. He leaves James inside on the couch, sobbing into a handkerchief. The sight of the damage had renewed his despair.

The outside has scorch marks but no serious damage, even to their ancient roof save for a few stray tiles. The garage is nearly untouched, James’ precious car safe inside. The car itself is dusty and looks like it hasn’t been used in months: Jacques had heard news of petrol rationing. Out in the front yard, their wrought-iron fence and gate is a twisted melted mess of metal.

A few meters beyond that is a crater in the street. The other houses on the street did not survive as well as theirs. Jacques feels nothing for them: they are not important to him. He doesn’t give a shit. James survived and that’s all that matters.

He goes in through the front doorway, picking up the front door and wedging it in the doorframe to stop the wind from coming through. He has to stop to lean against the wall: the dizziness is returning.

Back to his demonic connections. He gives a sharp yank on the ones that connect him to his lower Legions of Demons. A request from Jacques for more power is as good as a mandate for them, but it’s not enough – they’re already weak little abominations with little power to begin with.

Jacques wants to set this situation back to rights as soon as he can. His boss will not allow him to be gone for long and Jacques _needs_ to make sure that James is as safe as possible as _quickly_ as possible.

He gives a tug each to Harriett and Lucy’s connections. They protest but sense his seriousness and his weakness.

 _What the fuck’s happening?_ Lucy demands before she’ll give him her extra magic. _I thought you were with the Soviets. You feel like you’re back in England._

 _Tell you later,_ Jacques communicates back. _Emergency._ Through the connection with his sister, he shares the mental image of the crater in the street and the damage of their living room.

There is a silence from his sister’s end before she tentatively and quietly asks: _James?_

Why the fuck does she _care?_ Jacques frowns to himself. Lucy _hates_ James and has made that clear on many occasions.

 _He’s fine,_ Jacques responds.

Lucy communicates nothing more, but she sends the power, plus extra. Jacques mentally reminds himself to be less harsh with her the next time she inevitably fucks something up.

With his reserves not empty anymore, Jacques goes back into the living room and instructs James to move back while he uses magic to mend the broken windows. The room starts to warm slightly. Jacques gets James cocooned in a pile of blankets and furs in the living room. James insists upon not having tea since it was being rationed and he was low on it.

Jacques spends an hour up in the attic laying out magic protections for the roof of the house. He has to be careful because this needs to last for however long he’s going to be gone. He finishes and the house has a sturdy shield over the roof, with lighter curtain-like protections over the rest of the structure. It should hold up to a bomb. It should hold up to anything.

As he’s finishing up, he feels a sickening tug from one of his connections.

William. His boss is _not pleased_ about Jacques abandoning his job.

Jacques grits his teeth and summons a few stacks of paperwork. He hurriedly fills it all out, using two different forms: one for the argument that his _personal attachment_ was in mortal danger, the other one making the same argument but with Jacques’ house. He magically files it with his boss in Hell. Hopefully it will be enough bureaucratic bullshit that William can’t do too much in retaliation.

There is a long pause where William presumably is not pleased with the house addition: that makes it more difficult for him to refuse.

 _Fine,_ he demonically communicates. _You can have this. But don’t play with your toy too long. Tell it to be less clingy. Get back to work within a day._

 _Yes Sir,_ Jacques responds, his hands clenched into fists.

He counts to fifty, then does it again, before he’s calm enough to go back downstairs.

A day is generous. Jacques lays with James in his arms the rest of the night. The next morning, he comforts James again when his lover gets anxious about rations: James doesn’t have to eat so he gives all of his food rations to neighbors and friends, but things like tea and soap and clothing worried him. Jacques properly fixes the front door. He cleans up the wreck of their front fence. They’ll have to wait until the War is over to replace it.

The other thing that he fixes is James’ broken compass necklace, the one that protects him. James explains that he had panicked upon hearing the bombs and realized that he had no way to contact Jacques in case of emergency. He hadn’t wanted to break the necklace but knew that it was the only sure way to alert Jacques that something was wrong. Jacques fixes the necklace, making sure their connection is secure, before attaching a bell to the necklace and magicking it so that it James could touch it and let him know of danger.

Sitting with James while he drinks a cup of weak tea, Jacques learns that a large amount of wounded Army soldiers had been transferred to Bleston’s small hospital about a week ago. In addition, a new airplane factory had sprung up on the outskirts of the city, and there were extensive rumors that many military officials were staying in Bleston over the weekend. This is what had made their small city such a target.

Hopefully such an incident wouldn’t happen again.

Before Jacques leaves, he fills two refrigerators full of jars of his blood. He gives James as many kisses as he can, he promises to waste magic just so he can be sure his letters arrive. He promises to be home as soon as he can.

James tries his best to stay strong, but he’s sobbing into Jacques’ shoulder, clinging to him and begging him not to go. It causes fractures in Jacques’ stone-cold heart. He finishes up the components to his teleportation setup and hugs James one final time. Gives him one final kiss.

“I love you,” he whispers while they’re still close. Before kilometers separate them again. “James, darling, you are the only thing in this wretched world that matters to me. I only want your happiness.” He touches James’ wet cheek. “You’ll try to hang on, won’t you? Keep up the cheer, or whatever dumb shit people are saying now.”

That makes James crack a tearful smile. “I – I’ll miss you,” he confesses.

“That’s it, that’s that smile I like to see.” Jacques cups his lover’s chin. “You’ll keep smiling for me, won’t you? It’ll make everything so much more bearable if I know that you’re okay. I’ll miss you so fucking bad, sweetheart, but rest assured that I will always be _right here_ with you.” He taps the compass necklace.

James nods and wipes his eyes. His smile steadies. “See you – see you soon?”

“See you soon,” Jacques agrees. “I’ll get you something nice from the Soviets. They make the cutest fur hats with little flaps for your ears. Or maybe a tea set: they have these special water warmers especially for that. Or a shawl to keep you nice and warm. Or a necklace, James darling, something fancy and pretty. Amber, maybe to complement your hair. Or-”

“J-Jacques, you – you spoil me,” James protests. “All these gifts, every time!” But he’s smiling more widely. “Our house will look like a hoarder’s if you carry on like this!”

“Oh, but you deserve to be spoiled!” Jacques picks him up and spins him around once. James squeals in laughter like he does every time. “You deserve _everything_ and I’d be happy to give it all to you.” He sets James down. “But perhaps just the hat, then.” He winks. James knows that there will be much more gifts as Jacques is particularly unheeding of his protests.

He leaves on that positive note. One more kiss, this time _actually_ the last, and Jacques goes back to the frozen wasteland of the eastern Soviet Union, where he remains for only four more months before he can finally return home for the remainder of the War.


End file.
